Spring

Things have been very busy around here!  With the start of spring we were excited to get a garden going (and a bit nervous, I know animals but plants and I usually don't do so well together).  Before we could even get the first seeds into the ground we had yet more fencing to do.  You don't really realize when you move onto land just how many thousands of dollars you are going to put into fencing in order to use your land.  Since we were already putting in that fence we decided to continue one side of it to close in the back forest so the goats could enjoy all that free food back there.

  One day we will get the front fenced in so that can be used as food too but we will have to save up again before we do that.  Anyway back to the garden...

 

We had a wonderful garden planting party!  It was so fun to have Tante, Kate, Sonja, Andrew, Kelly, and Mariah here for a visit.  We are so blessed to have such wonderful people a part of our lives.

With the garden mostly in our attention turned to the broilers that were clearly ready to move to the freezer.  Of course my camera ran out of batteries but I did manage to get one shot of our chicken processing.  Ruthann was a great sport and slept through the entire event.  Frederick was a great help with the hose and only managed to completely drench me once.  We borrowed a chicken plucking machine that made the job so much easier.  It was a beautiful day and the chicken is delicious.

 With the broilers gone their inclosure was ready for its next occupants, the ducks.  We have HUGE slugs here and to help protect our plants in and outside of the garden we got two Blue Swedish ducks.  It was fun to watch them playing with their water but it was defiantly time to get them outside.  They still need a few more feathers but are growing fast and will soon have the run of the back forest with the hens and sometimes the goats.

 Speaking of the hens I think I mentioned that Clyde (our rooster) is gone, no not eaten although Travis did vote for that since he was the main person that kept being attacked by him.  We found a new home for him and got two Speckled Sussex roosters for free instead.  They are young but great friends and Sussex roosters are known for being calm and nonaggression.  They are also a nice duel purpose breed so any hens we get from them should be good layers and any cockerels we can eat. The picture is not that great but they are really pretty birds.

 The next project was an outdoor rabbit inclosure for Willow.  Alex helped me with the little house part then I tackled making the run part by myself.  I finally used the table saw and I still have all my fingers!  The best part about this cage is that the only thing I bought was three hinges for the house.  The rest of it was all left over from other projects or scavenged from around the farm.  Willow loves it and I love that she finally has room to be a rabbit.

 

Hermia has been wonderful to milk and we are now enjoying fresh milk everyday.  The next question was what to do with all this milk.  With strawberry season upon us we are really enjoying strawberry milkshakes buy I wanted to try something else too....

 Here is my homemade goat milk lotion.  I love it and am excited to try making new batches with other scents.  Now I just need a great label...

And the final babies to leave the house were the turkeys who just went out this week.  They are now 5 weeks old, have their feathers and love the fact that they can fly.  We had a few times then we would come in to the laundry room to find one that had managed to fly out of the brooder they were in despite the wire cover that was over it.  It would run around the room wondering where everyone went.  I must say I really like turkeys, they are so funny and so curious about everything.  One of these birds will be our Thanksgiving dinner but a few will be kept for breeding.  They are Narragansett turkeys, a heritage breed that still have good foraging and mothering skills and can still breed naturally unlike the breeds that are raised commercially.  I am very excited to see them grow up.  They are enjoying having some more room and in the next few weeks we will trim their wing feathers and let then out into the smaller goat pen to explore.  Ultimately they will have the run of the goat pen and the backyard.
 

A few shots of Ester so you can see how she has grown.  They one with her by Bree they are on uneven ground but Ester is just a tiny bit taller than Bree (she is 8 months old now).  She is much more friendly even to strangers although we did find when we had people staying with us that while she was fine with people she didn't know walking around with us she wasn't so fine with them wandering around when we weren't with them.

 So that is our farm update for now.  We just had a wonderful visit with my Mom.  My next post will have some photos of the kids.